KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE. 131 



the living and the dead, to stay the progress of the pesti 

 lence," 



Lieutenant-Governor Porter also admits the presence of 

 danger in the following words : " In times lite these, 

 when even the stoutest-hearted and most hopeful states 

 men and calmest politicians seem to apprehend danger, 

 and look with dread upon the consequences that may flow 

 from the existing agitation and condition of affairs con 

 sequences, if come they must, which will leave in their 

 track desolation and blood." 



My readers will, I hope, then, deem that my fears as 

 to the present aspect of American affairs were justified at 

 the time at which I wrote the previous chapters ; and 

 here let me ask, Where is the root of the evil which now 

 threatens to shake the vast continent of America to her 

 very centre ? The reply to this is, Her too great democracy, 

 her republicanism, and the power ivhich has been assigned by 

 the universal suffrage to the people ; to her exclusively de 

 mocratic returns to Congress, and to the domineering will 

 of unthinking multitudes, and their intimidating dictation 

 over the conscientious use of the franchise. 



I cannot agree with Governor Willard when he asks, 

 " Are we not of one race, of one blood, of one family, 

 of one destiny?" My reply is, "No. " It is one of 

 those facts that is fraught with so much danger to Ame 

 rica, that an immense portion of her population is of 

 adventurers, of foreigners, and of the refuse or surplus 

 population of other countries ; and that to these adven 

 turers, and men with nothing to lose, in too short a 

 time is intrusted a vote in her political fate. All this 

 arises from one great error an overwhelming demo 

 cracy. Her people those that ought to be her labour- 



